The Trump Administration Has Been Banning Abortion for Teens in Immigration Custody for Months

The teen at the center of the Jane Doe case has obtained the abortion she sought. According to The Washington Post, it was announced that the undocumented teen who the Trump administration had previously blocked from getting an abortion was able to get one as of October 25. This news came shortly after an appeals court had ruled she could get an abortion, overturning a previous ruling that had upheld the Trump administration's effort to stop the procedure.

Jane Doe issued a statement through the ACLU.

“People I don’t even know are trying to make me change my mind," she said. "I made my decision and that is between me and God. Through all of this, I have never changed my mind.”

Previously...

A federal appeals court has ruled that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services must find a guardian for an undocumented teen seeking an abortion before the girl can obtain one.

According to CBS News, a three-judge panel decided a teen in immigration custody cannot yet get an abortion, overturning a judge's rule earlier this week that the girl was allowed an abortion because of Roe v. Wade. The judges gave HHS until October 31 to find a temporary guardian for the girl, who can then get an abortion.

The Trump administration asked the appeals court to look into the previous ruling that the girl be allowed to have an abortion earlier in the week.

A Federal judge previously ruled the Trump administration must allow an undocumented teen in its custody to have an abortion.

According to The Washington Post, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled on Wednesday that the federal government must still afford undocumented people in its custody the constitutional right to an abortion, ordering the government to allow one Central American teen in immigration custody to obtain one. The case came to national attention earlier this week when an ACLU lawsuit revealed the government has attempted to prevent undocumented teens in its custody from getting abortions.

Chutkan said she was "astounded" the Trump administration had tried to prevent the teen in question from having the procedure, according to the Post, asking Justice Department lawyer Scott Stewart whether he believes undocumented people are protected under the Constitution and whether he believes Roe v. Wade is the "law of the land."

Chutkan ordered the teen be allowed to visit the nearest clinic to her shelter in Texas for state-mandated counseling on Thursday so she could get an abortion on Friday or Saturday. The federal government, however, had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit late on Wednesday to stay Chutkan's ruling by Thursday evening.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives voted to ban abortions after 20 weeks. However, one piece of legislation in the same vein has been kept quiet for months — even though it's been in effect since March.

A San Francisco court case has brought to light a little-known Trump administration policy that has been in effect since the spring, but has been affecting the lives of countless young women: a ban on abortions for pregnant girls in immigration custody who entered the country alone.

SFGate reports that the policy "appears to be illegal," according to U.S. Magistrate Laurel Beeler. The reason? All women in the country, no matter their status of citizenship, have a right to abortion access, as per the Constitution. "The government may not want to facilitate abortion, but it cannot block it," Beeler told SFGate. "It is doing that here."

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The lawsuit in Beeler's court, which is aimed at another set of reproductive health restrictions for minors in immigration custody, cannot include this newly unearthed policy as Beeler herself doesn't have the authority required. In other words, Beeler isn't able to order the government to allow an unnamed 17-year-old — identified as Jane Doe and staying in a Texas immigration center — to get the procedure done by the doctor who has agreed to conduct it.

That's why on Friday, the ACLU filed a new suit to challenge the policy. The ACLU estimates that there are hundreds of girls every year who enter the country alone, pregnant, and without documentation; however, shelters can't allow minors to leave the shelter to get abortions without the green light from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. According to Politico, director of the office, Scott Lloyd, wrote in an email last March to a staff member, "Grantees should not be supporting abortion services pre or post-release; only pregnancy services and life-affirming options counseling.”

"Jane Doe"'s lawyer told SFGate that pregnant minors instead must attend "crisis pregnancy centers" that are religiously sponsored. The girls are pressured to proceed with the pregnancy, told about the "dangers" of abortions, are shown sonograms of their fetuses; in addition, the office calls the girls' parents to inform them of the pregnancy.

"Jane Doe," now 14 weeks pregnant, witnessed her parents' reaction to her older sister's pregnancy: "beat[ing] her with wooden sticks and a cable until she miscarried," according to Susan Hays, director of the Texas abortion-rights group Jane's Due Process.

“Jane Doe is a brave and persistent young woman who has already been forced by the Trump administration to delay her abortion for weeks,” ACLU attorney Brigitte Amiri told SFGate. “The government is holding her hostage so that she will be forced to carry to term against her will.”

Politico reported that the Office of Refugee Resettlement released a statement on Monday night: "The Office of Refugee Resettlement is providing excellent care to this young woman and her unborn child and fulfilling our duty to the American people," said the statement from the Administration for Children and Families, a division of HHS. There is no constitutional right for a pregnant minor to illegally cross the U.S. border and get an elective abortion while in federal custody. Federal law is very clear on giving the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement the legal responsibility to decide what is in the best interests of a minor in the unaccompanied alien children program and, in this case, her unborn baby. We cannot cede our responsibility to care for minors and their babies by releasing them to ideological advocacy groups."